Pages

Thursday, 26 February 2009

Jill and I enjoy watching Sherlock Holmes films. To be honest, I’m more of a fan than Jill for mysteries involving Holmes and Watson. Jill is a fan of the films. I also like the books. I haven’t merely read the books, I also have modern facsimiles of the original Strand publications of the Conan Doyles stories. And a complete collection of the uniform set of paperbacks by Penguin Books that was issued some decades ago. And books about the books. And DVDs. And so on. Now stop right there! Before you picture me as a die-hard Holmes fan who goes around wearing a deer-stalker hat and quoting Holmes at every opportunity I would like to point out that I don’t take my interest that far.

I like reading, I read a variety of topics, and Sherlock Holmes is just one among many interests. Okay, I’ve worn a deer-stalker hat once. Only once. Yes, okay, I’ve had my photograph taken wearing a deer-stalker hat. And that was when Jill and I went to The Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street, London. However, all that the photograph did for me was prove that I shouldn’t wear a deer-stalker hat. It just doesn’t suit me. Most hats don’t. Even the Victorian top hat didn’t look good on me. Yes, okay, I tried on the Victorian top hat in the museum and had a photograph taken of that too. Neither photograph appear here because of how much they don't suit my face. Or rather how much my face doesn’t suit a good hat. I prefer to blame the hats.

Anyway, The Sherlock Holmes Museum is worth visiting if you enjoy the films, television series or the books. Like any museum or exhibit there are good points and bad points. The good points of The Sherlock Holmes Museum far outweigh the bad and the bad points could easily be put right.

To begin with the good points. The shop is on the ground floor and the rest of the building, right up into the attic, is the museum. The entrance fee to the museum part of the building is very fair; probably the lowest fee I know of in London. Even if you’re only interested in Victoriana, the museum could be of interest to you because most of the knick-knacks and everyday objects in the rooms are genuine articles from the correct period of the Holmes stories of 1881-1904. Also, the building used for the museum was actually used as a lodging house during the Victorian period and later (from 1860 right though to 1934) and so the layout of the rooms isn’t merely in accordance with the descriptions in the stories of the lodging house at which Holmes resided, it does give some genuine idea of the look and feel of a Victorian gentleman’s rooms.

In amongst the bits and pieces which provide an authentic look to the rooms are modern fakes, such as letters by Holmes to Watson. Also on display is a small selection of books from the publishing history of Holmes by Conan Doyle and others. Wax figures are to be found in some of the upper rooms; they each portray a scene from the stories. Their design matches the original illustrations from The Strand Magazine. I must admit that I don’t find such figures interesting but then I’m in a minority with that opinion. What was interesting and entertaining was Dr. Watson. Yep, an elderly gentleman hired to portray Watson was delighting some of the visitors with his friendly chit-chat about the adventures he had ‘shared with Holmes.’ He had a sense of humour and I think he was basing his Watson on that of the portrayal by Nigel Bruce in the films co-starring Basil Rathbone. Regrettably, Holmes wasn’t present to greet us; the museum is presently advertising a vacancy for someone to portray him.

We found every room interesting. There was a lot to take in and we just didn’t have time to scrutinise every little thing.

That was one of the three bad points. You would have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot every little detail portrayed in the rooms; or at least an astounding expert on the stories by Conan Doyle with a photographic memory. This was because very little was labelled. I imagine it would impossible to do so because the sheer amount of small items in the rooms. An audio commentary for each room, as can be found in other museums, might improve the situation. To be fair, such audio commentaries are expensive for a museum to acquire and maintain so perhaps that might be why there isn’t one.

The second bad point is one shared by most museums, especially those in London: the price of some of the items in the shop. The items for sale are great; you can buy the Sherlock Holmes stories in various editions, buy books about Sherlock Holmes, DVDs, replicas of Victoriana and so on - just don’t expect to find a bargain. Some of the items, well, most in this case, are available elsewhere at lower prices. Again, to be fair, most museums, if not all, are simply not in a position to give the reductions on prices to be found in ordinary shops. The almost annual reduction in funding to museums over the past number of decades has meant that they have had to become more commercial.

The third bad point was some of the staff. The woman who sold us our tickets couldn’t have been more strict and stern with us as she spoke. In the rooms above, a young man dressed in period costume, was more interested in reading a paperback than interacting with the visitors. It felt somewhat uncomfortable to have to interrupt his reading to ask him about some of the exhibits. One excruciatingly embarrassing moment took place in the shop. A male member of staff who looked middle-aged, the only person not in period costume and wearing bright white trainers, left the till unguarded at the back of the shop so he could, quite audibly to all the visitors in the shop, try to impress/chat up a very quiet and less than happy looking teenage girl sat at the front of the shop. The girl, dressed as a maid, stayed very quiet as he spoke to her in soft and gentle tones. His verbal fawning and her discomfort were just too much and so it was time to leave. We went to the till at the back of the shop and he was obliged to follow. The tone of his voice to us as we paid for our items was not soft and gentle. His manner was brusque and his tone a little gruff. Perhaps he didn’t like his private life being interrupted by work during work hours.

As we left, we fulfilled the obligation of a simple courtesy that is customary; in order to leave the shop we had to walk pass museum staff that we had spoken to earlier and so we said thank you and goodbye. There was no reply. We were ignored. That’s a first; even in London.

In the museum the building is great, the exhibits are great, what you can buy is quality and the entrance fee is very reasonable; I do recommend the place to anyone interested in Sherlock Holmes or the late Victorian period – however, if you do visit, brace yourself with quite a bit of patience regarding the behaviour of some of the staff.

Thursday, 19 February 2009

Although the end credits say 'time lapse photography', this is more of an animation. I didn't use the time lapse setting on the camera; instead I took photographs at various intervals during the drawing of the sketch. So the regular, automatic intervals of time lapse was not used. So is it strictly still a time lapse film? Also, I used only the one sheet of paper and not various cells of the sketch appearing - so is it strictly still an animation? Who knows?

The quality of image is slightly better. The detail can be increased even more and I may attempt this on a future video.

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

This video is different from the previous ones because it does not involve time lapse photography. It is speeded up in the editing process before being coded into a final video. I was unhappy with the quality of video image created by the time lapse software and so I used a different camera for the above video. It did not improve matters. Although I put brand new batteries into the camera, the camera cut out before I had finished the sketch. To speed up the video and save a very shortened version caused a big reduction in picture quality. So after all the effort I went to, there was no improvement. Such is life.

The only option left to obtain a high quality image is the one thing I was avoiding due to work commitments: animating a video. Yep, stopping and starting on a sketch so that I can manually take a picture every now and then, so that eventually the pictures can be made into an animation of the portrait appearing on the paper. These sketches can normally take between one hour to one and a half hours (and I sketch at the end of a working day). Animating it could take all day. Or longer. Time lapse photography was meant to take away all that effort. I'm just unlucky in that the camera and its software has a high quality image for all its various functions except time lapse photography.

Monday, 9 February 2009

Saturday, 7 February 2009

A whole week of people talking about the weather! So let's not mention it. We can talk about ... or we could talk about ... and then there's .... Oh Good Gravy! Okay, it snowed! It snowed a lot! Did I mention the snow? Here's a picture of the snow.

Actually, it is quite rare to see a scene like this in my home town. For some reason, the weather we get is never as bad as it is in the other towns near us. So, our town was completely unprepared for what was only about four or five centimetres of snow. That was light compared to other places. The postmen have not been delivering mail. Our buses have not been running. Only a handful of taxis have been operating and then only in certain areas. Shops in the town shopping centre either didn't open or had closed up by 3pm. Only a few died hard shops stayed open. The store where my wife works wanted to stay open until 6pm as usual. However, the shopping centre security people and the police went to see the manager; they pointed out it was the only store still open. The manager agreed to close the store early.

It's quite an event for our town to have snow on the ground. The snowflakes usually just melt as they land. Children have loved it. The plumbers have loved it too with all the burst pipes.